Some Congressional Offices Will Display the Ten Commandments, Thanks to FRC

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 22, 1999 | by John Elvin

The American culture has had it up to here. We've tried everything else -- why not go back to the basics?" asked Janet Parshall, chief spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, or FRC, in response to a question about FRC's Ten Commandments campaign. Having distributed 500,000 book covers featuring the sacred rules to schoolchildren nationwide, the group recently asked members of Congress to post the Ten Commandments in their offices.

Parshall says it was "standing room only" at a press conference where "member after member made a public declaration that they will hang a copy of the Commandments in their offices." She says the campaign was launched to counter those in our society suffering from "theo-phobia" who want to prevent display of the Ten Commandments "because they're afraid, not that it violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, but that some people just might read them and subscribe to them."

And what does FRC hope to convey by its campaign? "Being reminded that there is a right and a wrong way to behave, guidelines given to us by a God who loves us unconditionally, not some cosmic bully, is probably the best message that any of our kids, not to mention our grown-ups, could possibly get," Parshall tells Insight.